“They Should Have Taught Us It Was Not Either Or”
Muslim Adolescent Girls Negotiate Their In-Between Spaces
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19220570 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amal Elassi (0009-0006-5988-7533, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Adolescent Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0743-5584 • E-ISSN: 1552-6895 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/07435584261440911 |
| OpenAlex | W7161053740 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
As they navigate public schools and Islamic weekend school settings, Muslim American adolescent girls negotiate gendered, linguistic, racial, and religious identities across contexts that often frame being Muslim and being American as oppositional. This qualitative study examines how these adolescents construct in-between spaces through which they manage belonging, legitimacy, and constraint across multiple, and sometimes conflicting, social environments. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and cultural studies of hybridity and third space, the study draws on three collective case studies involving interviews with six Muslim American adolescent girls from diverse racial and linguistic backgrounds, as well as three mothers and six teachers. Findings reveal four interrelated forms of in-between spaces: race and language, religion and culture, being American Muslim, and dawah and activism. Across these spaces, participants navigated both external Islamophobia and internal community hierarchies, negotiating when identity work felt empowering and when it became burdensome. The findings underscore the need for closer collaboration between public schools and Muslim community institutions to support Muslim adolescents in navigating identity without forcing binary choices between faith and belonging
Faith · Grounded theory · Hybridity · Identity (music) · Identity negotiation · Islam · Islamophobia · Negotiation · Qualitative research · Education and Islamic Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
The Inbetweenness of Things Materializing Mediation and Movement between Worlds
Muslim Women in America
Western Representations of the Muslim Woman
All American Yemeni Girls
Factors Associated with the Process of Adaptation Among Pakistani Adolescent Females Living in United States
The ecosystems perspective in social work
Being Young, Muslim, and Female
Veiled Meanings
Third-generation British-Bangladeshis from east London
In‐betweenness
A lot of us have a very difficult time reconciling what being Muslim is
Just between us
How the Bronfenbrenner Bio-ecological System Theory Explains the Development of Students' Sense of Belonging to School
Contradictions of Community
Smoothing down ruffled feathers
The Clash of Civilizations
Young Muslim women in the United States
Unruly Women
Muslim Women
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |